Fall Like a Thunderbolt
by otterton
Summary: Being the Big Bad Wolf had never been in her ten-year-plan. Maybe she just hadn't been paying attention to the cards in her hand. Either way, in the end, she ended up being the Big Bad Wolf, and she was here to blow some houses down. (Possible future Bucky/OC.)
1. N

Title: Fall Like a Thunderbolt

Summary: Being the Big Bad Wolf had never been in her ten-year-plan. Maybe she just hadn't been paying attention to the cards in her hand. Either way, in the end, she was the Big Bad Wolf, and she was here to blow some houses down. Possible future Bucky/OC.

A/N: Hi, all. I haven't written fanfiction for an audience in a few years, but this is an idea that I've been tossing around in my head for awhile, so I thought I might as well, right? I will try to update on a regular schedule, but I _am_ a student, so, yanno, there's that. I was debating putting this under CA or the Avengers, and I'm going with CA because, at least for the first leg of this journey, it's going to be centered on CA:TWS. I'm juggling the possibility for Bucky/OC in this story, but at the current moment, it's on the backburner (and if it's there, it'll be a slow burning thing... ba-dum-tss).

Just a note: I'll be using Roman numerals as a numbering system (with the exception of this chapter, the prologue, which uses 'n' for the Latin "nulla". It means "none" and was used by computists and some ancient Romans in lieu of zero, as it did not exist within the Roman numeral system. At least, according to Wiki, anyway. If it's true, fun fact of the day; if it's not, well, it's a technicality, right?)

And another note: I'm starting this off as 'T' but may end up raising the rating to 'M' later on. If I do so, I'll give a little notice. I'm just projecting, with the track of future chapters, that I may need to do that.

And without further ado, I present: Fall Like a Thunderbolt.

* * *

 **. N .**

 **. CHOICES .**

" _LET YOUR PLANS BE DARK AND IMPENETRABLE AS NIGHT, AND WHEN YOU MOVE, FALL LIKE A THUNDERBOLT." - SUN TZU_

* * *

"Can I help you?"

The woman froze and looked to her right, seeing a middle-aged man behind a desk, eyebrows raised at her appearance. His eyebrows nearly disappeared when he noticed the bruises that covered her face and neck. "I'm looking for someone," she told him, and when he just stared at her blankly, she forced her bottom lip to quiver and tears to spring to her eyes. "Please," she croaked, making her voice shake. "He's the only one who can help me."

His eyes softened, and he directed her to the back.

The woman walked toward it, glad that it was nightfall and the gym was mostly empty. It would make everything so much easier, in the end. It would have been better if she could have managed to catch him alone, but she supposed that the only place that was possible was his apartment, which was much more dangerous than anywhere she could have approached him in public.

She came to the back room, paused in front of the door, and cocked her head. This could all go very, very wrong.

 _It won't_ , she promised herself. _I won't let it_. If Plan A didn't work, well, then, she'd just go through with Plan B. Plan B was what she'd been told to do, anyway.

Both plans would keep them safe.

The woman nudged open the cracked door, shutting it softly behind her, and surveyed the room. The man she'd been looking for was shirtless, soaked in sweat, and beating the shit out of a heavy bag.

She took a minute to admire him. His muscles had muscles, and they were gleaming with sweat. She doubted he had any body fat at all, and it would be in the low fifth percentile if he did at all. _Work,_ she reminded herself, and smirked as she took a few steps forward.

"Steven Grant Rogers," she said loudly. The man in question froze immediately, his fist suspended in air a few mere centimeters from the bag. "You are a hard man to find, my friend."

The blond turned around and eyed her, somewhat skeptically. "I'd appreciate it if you told Fury I don't need another handler, ma'am," Steve informed her politely before turning around and starting up his strikes again. She smiled at how naive he was. Endearing, really.

"I don't doubt that, Steve," the woman said with a smirk. "But I'm not your handler."

He was slowing his punches, and she continued, "In fact, I'm not even an agent within S.H.I.E.L.D."

Every muscle in his back, neck, and shoulders tensed, and his fist stopped mere centimeters before the bag. Steve turned around to face her again, face wary and set. _Better_ , she thought. She couldn't work with a blindly trusting puppet, and there were so many layers to this problem. So many culprits, so many sources of blame, she wondered if there wasn't anyone in their world without blood on their hands.

"Then who are you?"

"My name is Outis," she replied. "Outis I am called by mother, father, and by all my comrades." Steve's face scrunched up in confusion, and the woman sighed. "Not a friend of the classics, are you?"

His face scrunched up again, and as he realized what she meant, he scowled. " _Nobody?_ "

With a demure smile, the woman told him, "When I became useful to _my_ handlers, they erased anything and everything that proved I'd ever existed except for a birth certificate and produced a fake death certificate for me. So, according to the US government, I'm not anyone at all."

"Who are you, according to you?"

She forced amusement onto her face as she deflected, "That's not the question you should really be asking, is it?"

His eyebrows furrowed and his shoulders tensed. He didn't know the answer, he couldn't even begin to fathom it, but he knew what was coming was bad. _Pretty quick for a naive little soldier born in the twentieth century_ , the woman thought as he opened his mouth. "Who are your… handlers?"

"An enemy you've all thought was long gone. But, you know, when you chop off one of its heads, in its place will grow two more-"

Steve's face lost all color and horror overtook his face. "No. No, that's not possible."

"Look around you, Steve," the monster said, raising her arms by her side. "Everything around you-the technology, the scientific innovations, the societal standards-all of it was impossible. Until it wasn't." The blond shook his head and narrowed his eyes, and the woman continued, "H.Y.D.R.A. is alive, Rogers. And it's _thriving_."

He launched himself at her with a yell, raising his arm to punch her. She ducked under that one, wove under the cross-body that followed, but was hit by the hook he aimed at her chin.

The woman shook her head and back-pedaled quickly, weaving through and redirecting his attacks. "Do you want to kill me, Rogers?"

"You're going to tell me everything!" Steve yelled, looking very much like he did, in fact, want to kill her.

"Maybe I will, maybe I won't," she sang lightly right before her fist connected with his cheek. Muted pain glossed over her knuckles, but the dazed look on Steve's face as his head snapped to the side was worth it-it said he hadn't expected her punch to actually affect him much. It was replaced by anger again after a few seconds, and she was avoiding another one of his hits. She grabbed his wrist and spun so she was behind him. The woman's elbow connected _hard_ with the back of his neck, and he went down.

But Steve took her with him. As they grappled, the woman explained, "I want H.Y.D.R.A. dead as much, if not more, than you. But if you want _any_ information on them over the past seventy years, you're going to help me do something first."

He got her on the floor, a forearm held firmly against her throat-not crushing, but it was certainly a possibility. She could have flipped them, could have suffocated him, could have done a million things. But she recognized the move as an ceasefire. "Why would you join them if you want them dead?"

"Have you heard of the saying ' _entre la espada y la pared_?" she asked. He shook his head, eyes narrowed into slits. "It's a Spanish phrase meaning ' _between the sword and the wall_ '. Has a little more urgency than its English counterpart, I think."

Steve interrupted, irate. "What's your point?"

Her lips curled back as she said, "I was between the sword and the wall, Rogers. I could get speared by it and die, or I could wield it and wait until I could put _them_ between the sword and the wall."

She flipped them then and ground his face into the floor as she ground her teeth. She lowered her mouth to his ear and said, "Now, are you going to help me or not?"


	2. I

**. I .**

 **. CHANGES .**

* * *

.

"Life moves very fast. It rushes us from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds." Paulo Coelho, _Eleven Minutes_

 _._

* * *

She got all the bitch work, which was usually taking out the trash and bussing tables and cleaning up the bathrooms when people puked all over the place, and she couldn't complain because she wasn't legally allowed to work there, and no one ever said anything but everyone knew, anyway. But she needed the money, so she put up with it, and everyone knew that, too.

She threw the trash bags-both dripping a dark substance out of the bottom that smelled really bad and was really suspicious-into the dumpster, slammed the lid shut, and clapped her hands together with a tight frown.

She was about to turn and head back into the restaurant when someone reached around her and pressed a cloth to her mouth.

The girl startled, eyes wide, before she threw an elbow back behind her, catching her attacker in the eye or the nose, she wasn't sure, before kicking back with her heel. She caught his kneecap with a satisfying crunch, and the hand fell away with a grunt. She turned, ready to bolt-back to the restaurant or the hell back home, she wasn't sure, but there was no way she was staying here.

She froze, and the confident smirk she'd had on her face fell.

There were four very big men standing between her and the only escape route out of the alley.

Before she could scream, the guy closest to her grabbed the side of her head and shoved it hard against the dumpster. He let go of her, and she dropped like a rock, idly wondering if her head had put a dent in the dumpster or the dumpster had put a dent in her head, and then the cloth was back on her face.

The world in front of her eyes wavered, and she cursed her awful, rotten luck.

.

* * *

.

It was hard to keep her eyes open, and she couldn't remember if she'd started walking before or after she realized she was even moving. She didn't even remember when she'd regained consciousness. Her head was swimming, and putting one foot in front of the other seemed impossible.

All of the sounds were blending together and everything felt wrong and heavy at the same time. _She_ felt wrong and heavy. What was going on?

She stopped and looked around, trying to make sense of her surroundings, but everything was blurring together, and nothing was sticking in her head, and she couldn't make sense of anything. She stopped and squeezed her eyes shut, just trying to think straight-but it was like grabbing at the wind.

Someone shouted something in her ear and shoved her, and while she was trying to decipher what he'd said, she fell to the ground. After a moment, she realized he'd told her to _keep going_ , but she couldn't do that from the ground, even if she'd wanted to.

Her scalp was on fire, and she gasped. Whoever was behind her was dragging her around by her ponytail.

The thunder drumming in her ears suddenly picked up, and it sounded familiar. She struggled to find her footing, since she was still be dragged around, but she managed to do so, and looked up.

A plane. They were on a tarmac, getting on a plane.

 _Going where?_

She didn't know. She doubted the guy, who'd finally let her hair go so he could fall in just behind her, his hulking form just visible out of the corner of her eye, would answer her if she asked.

She stopped. He pushed her again, barking out the same order that he had before, but this time she did not fall.

.

* * *

.

She thought she knew fear.

Discounting everything that had happened to her before in her life, being attacked in an alley and kidnapped was a terrifying experience. It should have been enough.

It should have been, but it wasn't.

Because in the end, this wasn't about her.

She thought she knew fear, but what she felt when she saw a giant of a man carelessly carting the catatonic body of her sister onto the plane, she could have sworn the blood in her veins turned to ice and stopped her heart.

What she felt in that moment eclipsed everything that had ever come before it.

"Olivia!" she screamed, leaning out of her seat. She would have jumped up and fought the man if she hadn't been handcuffed to a pole above her head. As it was, the man glared at her and kicked her leg to shut her up, and her sister looked at her over his shoulder, eyes glassy and face uncomprehending.

After a few seconds, the corners of Liv's lips quirked, briefly. "Lilyun," the six-year-old slurred, asleep by the time their guard buckled her into her seat.

Lillian was exhausted-physically, mentally, and emotionally-but for the entirety of the seventeen hour and thirty-six minute flight, all she could do was watch her sister sleeping.

She thought she knew fear. They were only just beginning to become acquainted.

.

* * *

They were in the middle of nowhere. Lillian had always said Willowdale, Virginia was the sticks, especially considering she had lived in Arlington and D.C., but there were things to do in Willowdale. There was the university, and that one diner, and a movie theater. It was within the metro area, so even though she'd been to concerts with a higher attendance rate than her hometown, it wasn't as secluded as she always complained about it being.

But this-wherever they were now-was literally the middle of nowhere. The only thing she could see for miles was snow and the stupid building in front of her. They'd flown over a river, at some point, and a city, but then they'd kept going.

The guard was carrying her sister, who was still sleeping, and Lillian followed him toward the bleak, military base in front of her, trying to ignore the three guys walking next to her with machine guns and the the fact that there were three fences surrounding the building-complete with watchtowers and barbed wire.

She flexed her hands, paying careful attention to their path as they wound through the building. She was trying to memorize the directions they went, if only to soothe her mind, since it was obvious she and Olivia were not getting out of this hellhole anytime soon.

 _If at all._

Lillian scowled at the thought and tried to shake it away.

They walked for what felt like forever, passing what felt like a million guys with camouflage and military uniforms and guns, until they finally stopped in front of a thick set of doors. One of the guards next to Lillian placed his hand on a small scanner next to the doors, which opened seconds later with a hiss, and the group moved forward.

The office was high-contrasted with the bleak, concrete layout they'd left behind. Tapestries, paintings, and several bookcases completely full of books lined the walls and rugs took up the majority of the floor. She almost expected a fireplace and a man with a pipe and a fluffy white cat to finish off the stereotypical 'evil villain mastermind' aesthetic.

Instead, what she got was three men: two she completely didn't know and one she wished she could have forgotten sandwiched between the two.

The skin around her eyes tightened, and she scowled. "Shoulda known you were in the middle of this shitshow, William," she drawled, venom hardening her words.

Her father scowled at her. "Language, Lillian!" he reprimanded sharply, pushing his glasses up on his nose.

The corners of Lillian's mouth twisted up into something ugly, dark, and angry. "Yes, because my _language_ is the most offensive aspect of this situation."

Before he could say anything else to her, one of the man men she didn't recognize cut in mildly. "Might I suggest, William, that you show your daughters to their room to get settled in for the night? Miss Hunter has been through an ordeal and must be exhausted. The young one obviously is," he chuckled, and Lillian bristled.

"Whose fault is that?" she barked, not wanting this guy to talk about Olivia anymore. He had no right to even look at her, much less talk about her.

He eyed her, mouth smiling and eyes not, and Lillian held her ground. "We have much to discuss tomorrow, Miss Hunter," the man said randomly. "Do try and get some rest tonight. You'll need it."

And then the man raised his hand, and all of the guards except for the one holding Olivia, followed him out of the room.

Neither of the Hunters left said a word; William simply left the room, followed by the guard, and Lillian had no option but to trail after both of them. She alternated between glaring at the guard's back and her father's, hurrying to keep stride with the big man, watching him out of the corner of her eye.

If he noticed, he didn't say anything.

They walked down more monotonous concrete hallways before stopping in the middle of a hallway lined with doors. These ones were steel and swung inwards. Inside, the room had bunkbeds and a single chair, next to which was a Bible. Lillian couldn't resist snorting and she said, "Well, this is cozy. Do we get room service?"

William scowled at her, his default expression anytime he was within twenty feet of her. Judging by the bunkbed, he was in a different room than her and Liv, which was preferable; after not having to see his face for almost two years, she felt living with him would be impossible.

"Watch your mouth. No one has to put up with your attitude," he told her, and she didn't resist rolling her eyes.

Aunt Marge would have smacked her upside the head; William just muttered something about disrespectful teenagers before leaving the cell. The guard walked over the bunk-bed, depositing Olivia on the bottom bunk before turning around and walking out. He stood in front of the open doorway on the other side of it and raised an eyebrow at Lillian.

The teenager scowled and kicked it shut.

Lillian didn't know if he left after that, or if he was standing outside going to stand outside of her shared cell, making sure she didn't escape.

The thought was ridiculous. Even if she managed to maneuver the hallways, get past the endless amount of men with guns, and not impale herself on a barbed-wire fence, she still had to worry about exposure on her way to civilization-assuming, of course, that she could even find it before she died. No food, no water, no experience-and a seven-year-old to take care of, to boot.

No, there was no way out. Lillian knew it. They knew it. Everyone knew it.

The thought didn't sit well with her, and she hunkered down on the floor, curling in on herself, as she tried to process.

This morning-just this morning-she had been making plans to tour colleges with Aunt Marge. She'd been studying for her driver's license exam. And then she had been attacked in an alley, kidnapped, flown to the middle of nowhere somewhere very far from home.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

 _It isn't fair!_ she screamed in her head. _Haven't you ruined our lives enough?! It isn't fair!_

Her eyes burned, her head pounded; she squeezed her eyes shut even tighter, but hot tears still leaked out. "God damn it!" Lillian yelled, hitting the ground with a fist.

A whimper came from the bed, and Lillian looked up. Olivia was still sleeping, but she was moving around. Another whimper escaped her mouth, and the older Hunter girl wiped her tears with the back of her hands and walked over to the bed. She took off her sister's shoes and then her own, and stood up quickly so she could turn off the fluorescent light.

Lillian banged both her head and her shin on the metal frame of the bed and swore, but Liv didn't wake up, for which Lillian was grateful. She crawled in behind her sister, inserting her arm under the younger girl's head to act as a pillow and sighed.

 _No one has to put up with your attitude,_ their father had said. It was a warning as much as it was a threat; she didn't know what was going on or what her father had done, but it was clear that they were in danger. A game was afoot, and Lillian didn't know the rules or where the other pieces were. She didn't know who was playing. She was flying completely blind.

But she was going to win. If their father wasn't going to keep them safe, then she would.

 _Tears aren't gonna change a damn thing, you cry-baby,_ Aunt Marge had always told her. _You either brush the dirt off her cheeks, or you become it. Choose one._

She was right, like always. Aunt Marge was a drunkard and an obnoxious hag, and Lillian would never tell her to her face (would probably never get the chance, a voice whispered to her from the back of her head), but she was always right. Always strong.

"Tears aren't going to change anything," Lillian whispered to the back of Olivia's head.

 _I'll be strong for the both us,_ she thought. _I'll keep you safe._

Olivia's breathing evened out as she snuggled into the crook of Lillian's elbow. The elder Hunter girl stared into the darkness and drifted off into a restless sleep.

* * *

 **A/N: Hi, everyone! Thank you so much for the reviews, faves, and follows; the feedback is really exciting. In complete honesty, this update was actually supposed to be out last week, but my laptop officially died in the beginning of December (as in, would not even turn on) which was a complete pain during finals. But I just bought a new one this morning, so yay~**

 **In case it wasn't obvious, this chapter is a flashback in reference to the prologue. It will continue in this vein for a few chapters before sliding forward in time to CA:TWS.**

 **Willowdale, Virginia: in case anyone may not be familiar with it, this is a town within the Marvel Universe where Bruce Banner was conducting his experiments with his version of the Super Serum at Culver University (the university Lee references). It's never been stated exactly where in VA Willowdale is, so I've placed it within the DC metro area, commonly referred to as the DMV.**


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